What we really sail

The slow boats getting slower, well - I suspect that is skewed by the junior classes. Case in point being the Topper which I believe was 1290 when I sailed one (V competitively) in roughly 2009-2013 and at that was already a benefit in strong airs, with multiple club race wins against exceptionally good sailors I really shouldnt have stood a chance against. It's now up to 1365. Is this because the boat has changed? Well, it's only sped up with the advent of decent 6:1 downhauls, a more powerful 6:1 kicker recently, and little reliability improvements (gooseneck, gudgeons, masthead) in that time, so that's a cold, hard, no. So, what's more likely being handicapped is the standard of sailors racing.

There has been a genuinely massive speed increase in the Streaker and Solo at very least with the advent of decent FRP boats since ~2005 or so, probably 15-20 point based on personal experience with a pretty good (154*) wooden Streaker, followed by an FPR rocketship (183*). The difference was all downwind, with the woodie faring excellently upwind, but sticking like sh*t downwind. So in this case - has the standard of sailor changed? Well, probably not, it's still a similar demographic of mainly old blokes with mainly current boats. What's changed, is the current boats are faster than they were 15 years ago.

IMO this demonstrates the crux of it is that what is being handicapped is a composite of: the boat speed itself, and the skill level of your average standard club racer. 

This is all speculative, and I've barely fact checked the above, so feel free to throw some numbers/facts/abuse at me and tell me I'm wrong. Does anyone have a freely available archive of PY numbers from 2000 to 2020? Would be curious to see them and make some graphs myself if so, and I don't mind what format they're in!